LISBON  Charles A. Wilson Jr. doesn't have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions to run in the Democratic primary for the 6th Congressional District race, The Vindicator has learned.

The Columbiana County Board of Elections is left with no other choice but to disqualify Wilson's candidacy for the seat at its meeting today.

Wilson has only 48 valid signatures on his nominating petitions, according to two Democratic sources and one Republican source with knowledge of his petitions. Congressional candidates need 50 valid signatures from registered voters in their districts to get on the ballot.

Wilson, a state senator from St. Clairsville, was widely considered the favorite to win the May 2 three-man Democratic primary for the 6th District.

Wilson has said there are 50 valid signatures on his petitions.

His petitions had 96 signatures, all from Belmont and Scioto counties. Those counties are split into two congressional districts, and 43 of the signatures on his petitions came from voters who live in other congressional districts.

Of the 53 from 6th District residents, five were thrown out for various reasons, considered fatal flaws under state law, including those who listed post office boxes as addresses and one person who didn't list an address, those with knowledge of Wilson's petitions said. That leaves Wilson with 48 signatures from valid registered voters in the 6th: 41 from Belmont and seven from Scioto.

Hindsight

Wilson and his supporters acknowledge the campaign should have collected signatures in other counties.

Wilson has said he forgot his home county of Belmont is a split county even though he lives in the part that isn't in the 6th District. St. Clairsville is a community in the 18th Congressional District.

"Charlie Wilson appears to be grossly unfamiliar with the congressional district he wants to represent in Congress," said Ed Patru, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Once disqualified, Wilson can appeal the decision to the Columbiana County elections board by the deadline Monday. If the board dismisses the protest, Wilson can file a complaint in the 7th District Court of Appeals.

If a legal challenge fails, Wilson can run as a write-in candidate in the Democratic primary or seek the job in the November general election as an independent.

"Those decisions have yet to be made," Wilson said Tuesday.

The write-in candidacy deadline is March 13. A simple form declaring his candidacy as a write-in is all that's needed to run that way.

Party chief's input

Chris Redfern, the Ohio Democratic Party chairman, said he'd prefer Wilson run as a write-in. The chairman said it would cost Wilson's campaign a considerable amount of money to make Democratic primary voters in the 12-county congressional district aware of Wilson's write-in candidacy and how to cast ballots for him.

To run as an independent in the general election, Wilson would need petitions with 1,886 valid signatures, according to the Columbiana County elections board. That number equals 1 percent of the total votes in the 2002 gubernatorial election.

Some Wilson campaign advisers want to go the independent route. But Redfern sees that as problematic.

"When we do sample Democratic ballots, we don't want to include an independent candidate," Redfern said, because it causes voter confusion.

Redfern said the state party doesn't have to endorse or support the winner of the Democratic primary. The two Democrats in the party's primary for the 6th District seat are Bob Carr of Wellsville and John Stephen Luchansky of Boardman.

Important seat

As one of the few open seats in a competitive congressional district  President Bush captured 51 percent of the district's vote in 2004  national Republicans and Democrats consider this to be one of the most important House races in the country. U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Lisbon Democrat, isn't running for re-election this year, opting to run for governor.

State Rep. Charles Blasdel of East Liverpool is considered the Republican front-runner in this race.

"Whether he runs as a Democrat or an independent, we will bury Charlie Wilson," Patru said.

If I live to be 100, I don't think I will ever see such a promising congressional candidate screw up so badly on such a simple task. Wilson's a freaking state senator, and he can't get 50 valid signatures from residents of the district? All he had to do was talk to a Steubenville union leader and get 500 signatures by the next day; even if 90% of them were illegal he'd still get the 50 he needed.

As I posted last week, Wilson can either run as a write-in in the RAT primary or as an independent in the general. If he runs as an independent, it will ensure a GOP victory in a district that gave President Bush 51%, since even if the Democrat primary winner drops out he'll still get like 10% from stupid voters due to the D next to his name. So Wilson will probably run as a write-in in the RAT primary. While winning a primary as a write-in is not impossible (especially with an easy name to spell and remember such as Charlie Wilson and with such lackluster opponents), Wilson will have to spend quite a bit of time and money on a nomination that everyone thought he had sewn up. All I know is, what looked like a 50-50 chance at a GOP pickup now looks like a 75-25 chance, since if either of the two nobodies running in the RAT primary wins, he'll lose in the general.

Oh, and wouldn't it be sweet if the incompetent Wilson forgets to tell the election board that he will be running as a write-in under the names Charles Wilson *and* Charlie Wilson and thus Charles Wilson finishes second, followed by Charlie Wilson? Wilson would sue saying that Charles Wilson and Charlie Wilson are one and the same, and the GOP would find some other guy named Charlie Wilson saying that he's the real Charlie Wilson, and even if Wilson ends up winning in court he'd be meat in the general election for being such an ass.

"If I live to be 100, I don't think I will ever see such a promising congressional candidate screw up so badly on such a simple task."

Nobody remembers this now, but in 1994, Indiana state Auditor Ann Devore was a strong candidate for Congress. But she forgot to turn in the proper paperwork, even though her own office was in the same hallway as the Secretary of State's office.

That is the 'Rat mantra. They are too out of the loop to know the dealing inside their own party to know about corruption. They are too incompetent to know what theya re supposed and not supposed to do.

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posted on 02/22/2006 6:26:03 PM PST
by Blood of Tyrants
(G-d is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)

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